Sony is currently deep in negotiations for the purchase of MGM, the successful film studio whose largest stakeholder is Kirk Kerkorian. Sony has the backing of Providence Equity Partners and Texas Pacific Group, with the total deal on offer being worth US$5 billion.

Purchasing MGM would give Sony access to over 4,000 films and 10,000 hours of TV episodes, with titles of note being Robocop, Rocky, the Pink Panther movies, Stargate SG-1, and the ever popular James Bond series of films–these could go a long way towards popularizing the upcoming PlayStation Portable's video playback capabilities. On top of this, the acquisition would make Sony Pictures the largest U.S. box office marketshare holder, and increase the amount of intellectual property the company has to use for game releases.

The interest from Sony has sparked renewed interest from Time Warner, which may decide to enter the fray. That could lead to a long battle before MGM has a new owner.

MATTHEW'S OPINION
This would be a major scoop for Sony on both the film and game front, and would bode very well for the PSP. As the PSP is going to be offering movies on the UMD format, what could be better than having the 4,000-strong back catalogue from MGM to bring out? The ownership of the Bond films alone make this a worthwhile purchase.

The gamesindustry.biz article points out that existing contracts for the Bond files mean we wouldn't see PlayStation-exclusive releases of the Bond games, and anti-competitive laws may stop future exclusives anyway; but this shouldn't bother Sony too much as it still would make a lot of money off the multi-format sales. I am sure there are many other films in the catalogue worthy of the games treatment, with Rocky already having a release for Xbox and possible future Robocop games on the cards.

It will be a while before we know whether Sony has done the deal, but it just shows how clever the Sony Corporation is by making a move like this and trying to its their place as THE all-round entertainment company. Not only would this deal benefit the film and games divisions, but it will allow Sony to diversify into other fields, such as on-demand video, where the Sony ideal would be to have one of its films streamed to one of its devices and watched on one of its TVs.

USER COMMENTS 9 comment(s)

Even worse(8:46am EST Tue Apr 27 2004)Sony can cross platform all those movies of note to its (insert game platform here) Propriety Bond license for any platform is a nice thing to have…..

Plus… I would love to see some new blood in hollywood

Ohh yeah first post – by Illero

YAWN…(10:33am EST Tue Apr 27 2004)Yay, more movies from Sony and it's not even Final Fantasy. 007 games with video clips on the go, color me not excited. Didn't the short lived multimedia “wow” of video clips in games die out with the Sega CD back in the 90s??? And I'll add that the new Pink Panther remake with Steve Martin and cameos by Beyonce and David Beckham should be a total watered down snore fest. – by Vorlon

Who owns Bond?(12:02pm EST Tue Apr 27 2004)Sony has been trying to make a bond movie for a while – last working title was Warhead 2000, a remake of Thunderball and Never Say Never Again (which was also a remake of Thunderball). It also wants a share of the Bond profits. This has been an on going dispute between Sony and MGM since the 60s.

See …

In my opinion, I think Sony will ruin the Bond franchise if it gets control of it. I could just see it, a remake after remake after remake.– by MRKKBB

Re: Who owns Bond(12:05pm EST Tue Apr 27 2004)Well, MGM did not ruin the Bond franchise when it got control of it from United Artist (the movie studio started by Charlie Chaplin). – by movie guy

Bond franchise ruining Austin Powers(12:49pm EST Tue Apr 27 2004)Remember the flake that MGM put Austin Power into when his movie was called “Goldmember”. I remember the joke that the Austin Power movie was going to be renamed to “Dr No Reference To Any Bond Movie”. – by ha ha